Postgraduate Publishing studies at Edinburgh Napier University. INDUSTRY APPROVED Publishing degrees (accredited by the Professional Publishers Association and Creative Skillset). MSc Publishing was the first Publishing programme in the UK to be accredited by the Professional Publishers Association (PPA). It is now accredited by Creative Skillset (only one of two courses to hold this award). MSc Magazine Publishing is the only course of its kind in Scotland and is the only publishing course in the UK to be accredited by the PPA. The PPA is the lead body for best practice in training, development and people management for the magazine and business media industry.

Welcome to the Foodies World!

The Media Company Publication has now been relocated right in Edinburgh city centre, to face a sublime scenery of St Andrew Square. I had an excellent opportunity to take my work placement in Foodies Magazine’s editorial section. I started my placement on the day that most of the people had left to London, so there was quite a few people left at the office. However, I still received a very nice and warm welcome from them.

I felt really delighted to join in the editorial team again, after I have had 3 years of experience in working in magazine editorial for the media company in Thailand, which is a subsidiary company of a major media firm in Germany Hubert Burda Media. As a former beauty and lifestyle writer, this time was quite another exciting experience for me to take an access to the world of foods, another hobby and obsession of mine. I was really looking forward to my placement.

My first day with Foodies was quite exciting to hear the phone rang incessantly! By the way, I was certainly aware that their Foodies Festivals is so popular in all around the UK that they will be running the total 13 events of Foodies Festivals this year. And that was the reason why the phone never stopped ringing. I had to consider those telephone calls were also lovely greetings for me at Foodies as well.

It was also my pleasure to start working in editorial with Lidia, a newly-graduated publishing student from Napier. She was really kind and helpful. The tasks she offered me brought me back for the time I worked in Thailand, but this time most of the issues on research I had to do were about food and local businesses based in Scotland. I have spontaneously learnt a lot about Scottish gastronomy world. Moreover, I also helped in editing and proofread the text in Foodies Festivals’ showguides. I have to thank a creative toolkit module which enabled me to handle with InDesign better!

The second week of my placement, it was my honour and pleasure to meet and work for Sue Hitchen, editor of Foodies Magazines(also my pleasure to know how Sue has such a great impression on Bangkok, my hometown).This week I had a chance to help Sue and her team in the preparation to organise the upcoming events, which are Foodies Festivals at Tatton Park and Clapham in July. Everyone in the team were very busy. So I could help them in some miscellaneous tasks like sending out the tickets or proofreading the showguides. I would like to thank Sue and her team in giving me an opportunity to participate in their professional team. And see how all of them were able to deal with so many people.

In my point of view, Foodies is not only a media publication, but also a professional event organiser. Their Foodies Festival is such an impressive brand extension for a magazine publication, even it will be a huge challenge for them to run both event and magazine at the same time. The 10 year-anniversary of Foodies Festivals has proved that they are successful to make their brand of Foodies Magazine being represented by their annual Foodies Festivals. I would be interested to consider building a magazine title and annual event altogether when I go back to my home country.